My favorite is when someone tells me that they are too old to learn about new technology, or that they can’t use a device because they aren’t very tech-y. No, you just refuse to learn.
That every generation of device is going to be the next greatest thing and they should all have huge leaps like in the early 2000’s.
I doubt people switching from the rotary phones to touch tone phones were complaining a year later about not having something better from the phones.
Clicking OK without reading the box.
It won’t work, I get an error.
What’s the error say?
Let me try again. Ok it says enter a time.
Did you enter a time?
No.
My sister works in tech and it’s concerning to me how much she believes all the hype from tech startups. Sometimes i wonder if she is serious and sometimes it is painfully obvious she is.
I remember one time she urging me to use this app that ‘translated cat meows.’ the concept sounded just silly to me but I induldged her by recording and “translating” the meows of her cat that i had been taking care of for a couple of years. The interpreted cat meows according to the app revealed that the cat supposedly loves me, and i’ m her favorite and she is sad when i am not around. (which is standard cat behavior if you treat them well and especially for this cat that is very caring and social.
My sister reacted like she was jealous, not only believing everything the app translated but also feeling like i displaced her as her cat’s favorite human. The whole experience was surreal.
That any website outside of corpo net is the Evil Dark Web. I can’t stand my tech illiterate friends that refuse to use the fediverse or any non tracking YouTube links. If a site is HTML only they shit their pants.
When did people get so dumb about computers ? Man.
Linux nerds screeching about how Linux desktop works perfectly out of the box and with less time and effort then Windows/OsX.
It’s entirely counterproductive to adoption.
Yeah, I tell people Linux is like driving a custom built car. You can make it do anything you want and have absolute control and freedom, and often do things other cars can’t, faster and more efficiently and cheaply. But sometimes it’s going to break and you need to get in there and wrench. If you don’t enjoy learning, or work 80 hour weeks and have no time to tinker, don’t use Linux desktop.
I got my SO to change because they like to customize, and I’m there if if breaks.
I’m learning a lot. I am now at the point where I know just enough to break everything but not yet enough to fix anything.
I feel the same !
“I got my 107 year-old great grandmother running Arch from the command line in 20 minutes! Now she browses with Lynx and hosts a Matrix server.”
It works out of the box - if you do nothing at all to it and just browse.
But to do anything like getting all of your favorite programs, that’s going to take effort.
Not even. I need custom scripts for audio, can’t turn my display off and on I need to pull the HDMI cable, and Bluetooth is basically unusable.
With older hardware sure. I largely have a flawless experience with anything 10 years old or older. And as long as it’s simple anything 5 years old works perfectly too.
But somehow my 5 year old network card is basically unusable on Linux unless I disable 6ghz WiFi.
I don’t know, but my view of technology being awesome and wonderful and the way to a better future has died, and that makes me sad
I’ll try to answer the question. How about this worry so many people have that technology facilitating any level of privacy is only going to be used for evil purposes. Even non technology cases. “Why aren’t you putting your real name and hometown?” Because it’s not relevant to this situation and nobody’s business! “Why are you refusing to be in this cute video we’re making for the company social media presence?” Because I don’t want my picture out there for everyone to see, and to be able to extrapolate where I live and who I work for
I think I got our company social media person to actually think I might have been serious when I eventually started saying I was under some kind of witness protection just to get out of it without having the same battle every time
I’m still awaiting the moment someone finally has a reason to legally insist on looking into my background or whatever after the whole “what shady activity or history are you hiding, always wanting your privacy and refusing to volunteer information about yourself” only to find I’m completely clean. No criminal record, no suspicious affiliations (unless Lemmy counts, hah), nothing incriminating. I’ve lived an extremely boring life. I just value my privacy
“XYZ company already has all my data so I don’t care that they’re spying on me and selling my data to advertisers”
Fucking makes my blood boil. These people have absolutely zero critical thinking skills, or self respect
I dislike the “privacy fiends” that hang around those subs/forums/instances but try to debate you out of trying. The “akschaully that wouldn’t work because…” people. Who are they helping?
Totally agree. Perfect is the enemy of good. If people would just drop meta, and Microsoft. That would go a long way and would be pretty easily achievable for most people.
Alphabet would be huge but because most phones run android (including my own), that’s a big ask, too big without a good viable alternative ATM
The thing is though, that most people don’t know why that’s a problem, and privacy advocates seem to think that ‘you’ve got a door on your bathroom’ is a gotcha.
If someone is giving Google their home address and work address, and planning the route to get traffic data, they’re not going to be concerned when Google Maps suggests their work address as a destination through the week. Same for their shopping data. ‘Of course Amazon knows what I like, I do my shopping there!’
We need better ways to explain it to people who don’t understand it, and who are not interested in it or the tech behind it. We have a big problem on Lemmy where we tend to assume that everyone understands the same issues as us, just not as well.
If someone is giving Google their home address and work address, and planning the route to get traffic data, they’re not going to be concerned when Google Maps suggests their work address as a destination through the week.
It isn’t that they aren’t concerned, that is actually something many people see as a benefit. Yes, I still use google maps because it remembers destinations and has traffic density alerts and a bunch of other stuff that require tracking but those are a separate thing from google selling that tracking data to third parties. The former is a benefit and the latter is a problem.
That’s part of my point. For most people, giving Google their data means things like their travel info. The majority of people don’t understand that tracking data is different, or what it means. When you tell them not to give their data to big corporations, they think you mean any data, and don’t know that they can get data that you might not want shared
I would love to see a majority of people stop considering ‘new tech’ as the magical wand/solution to all their problems, and see them stop considering ‘new tech’ as a necessity in their lives. Whatever their age.
My favorite is when someone tells me that they are too old to learn about new technology, or that they can’t use a device because they aren’t very tech-y. No, you just refuse to learn.
Beware of that kind of shortcuts, they often can be very wrong.
Also, do you think old people not wanting to use whatever new app or service is more of an issue than younger people not be willing to not use same app or service?
Working in a store with a self-service printing center, I can tell you it’s a lack of wanting to learn, or even read. Instructions are spelled out on the copiers, but many of my customers will demand someone to help them before even looking at the device because they claim they are too old and not tech-minded enough to do it themselves. Actual excuses to not even trying.
People need to learn innovation is not always progress, and that some paths forward are dead ends.
Not exploring the Settings menu of a new device. That should be the first thing you do when you first power on a new device. Most people just go with whatever the default settings are. Hell, some have never even seen their settings menu beyond the wifi connection.
Something I absolutely hate is when people say shit like “do you sell an apple charger?” The complete ignorance of what port your device uses or even what it’s called is infuriating. Look, you either have a usb-c or lightning port, and you only have a lightning port if your phone is from like a decade ago or something. You should know by now to look for usb-c cables. It’s especially frustrating when they get angry at me when they don’t understand what I’m talking about.
I’m a sales supervisor in an office supply store, and I get this ALL THE TIME! I once had someone argue with me over the name of the cable connectors and wondered why I didn’t know what they were talking about. Then they said, and I quote, “Well, to me that’s what I call them, so I’m going to just keep calling them that.”
na boy some peoplw be dumb as fuck. Some don’t want but somenare incapable…as you can see by the state of the world
I believe the premise of your argument is false, there are lots of people who aren’t capable of learning something. Not just because they refuse to learn but because there are genetic limitations. it’s scientifically proved by the bell curve of intelligence. There are just people who will not learn the same as you as you will not be able to learn as someone else unless you are a genius. For example I am dumb as fuck about quantum physics but I perfectly know all the settings in a smartphone and there are people who are worse or are better doing the same.
I’m not saying people with less intelligence are bad people and geniuses are good people, I’m just saying everyone is different, and not just about intelligence, physical characteristics vary too, as for example I don’t believe you can play in the NBA and also not me. You got my point?
I’d argue that quantum physics is genuinely difficult, but also not very applicable to most people’s daily life. The stuff that computer illiterate people struggle with tends to be both relatively easy and very applicable to daily life, and many of these people aren’t as dumb about all other parts of their lives.
I’d argue that quantum physics is genuinely difficult, but also not very applicable to most people’s daily life.
Anybody who claims to understand quantum physics … doesn’t. If you think it’s easy to understand, then you have a very superficial and incorrect understanding of it. Actual quantum physicists, the foremost experts in the field … they may know the math behind it and be able to figure some of it out … but they’ll be the first to tell you that they don’t understand most of it, though they’re constantly trying.
What is the distinction you are making between knowing the math and understanding it?
Quantum physicist: “This is the equation that describes the phenomenon and has so far done a very good job of predicting the outcome.”
“Cool. Why does it work like that?”
Quantum physicist: *shrug* “Hopefully maybe someday we can figure that out.”
Paying for everything, especially things you can be getting for free.
The idea that if you’re not paying for something then you’re the product is rhetoric for suckers so they don’t recognize how they’re being fleeced.
Some stuff is indeed free, although, some other stuff seems free because you’re paying with something else that is not money.
Troll. Smiling and sunshine is free, all other things require some sort of payment in this world.
I’m tired of people breaking software. If your software broke because of a dependency then next time maybe you shouldn’t introduce one.
Or it is poorly documented. Like what, you think you’ve made a quantum kind of software that is so special you felt you didn’t need to jot any notes down of it?
